I like Lococo's Pizzeria, and I've got some pretty good reasons for it:

• They've got great super-thin crust pizza. I mean, it's really thin. Like tortilla thin. But it's crispy and stands up to their hearty sauce. The cheese actually has flavor and texture, unlike many of the chain places. It's cheap, too. A 16" cheese pie is $12.95. If you want a double crust, add a dollar.
• They've got the cheapest beer imaginable. A 48oz pitcher of Bud/Bud Light will set you back $4.00. Bud too swanky for you? A bottle or can of PBR will set you back $1.25. Still too rich for your blood? A can of Old Style can be had for a buck.
• They're just nice folks. It's a family-run place, and they seem to genuinely want their customers to leave happy.

When you add on free delivery (not to my house, but still), live music on Friday & Saturday (9pm until whenever on Friday and 7-9pm Saturday), and a pretty broad menu, I think you've got yourself a winner.

Lococo's is in the Bashas' Plaza at Thornydale & Cortaro. They're open 11am-9pm Sun-Thurs, Friday 11am until they're not open anymore, and Saturday 11am - 10pm. Got questions? Visit lococos.net or give them a call at 520-744-7136.

Kevin
-TFD

This evening I present to you the third part of the Azul saga. You can find part 1 here and part 2 here. Go ahead and read them. I'll wait.

Caught up? Good. Before I go on to describe the events of the evening, I'll point out that the entire meal was courtesy of the house. Rest assured that if there were things that weren't good I would say that even if we didn't pay for the meal.

One more piece of housekeeping: Kristine & I were a little self-conscious about the whole setup. We were having a hard time balancing wanting to try multiple things on the menu and being worried about the running up a huge tab since we weren't paying for it. Sigh. Maybe next time it won't be so awkward, but this time it was a little.

We arrived for our reservation and were seated right away close to a corner by the windows overlooking the pool area. Our server, Alex, came over fairly quickly for our drink orders. I ordered a glass of the French Maid cabernet and Kristine ordered.... the Spanish Guitar cab/tempranillo? It may not have been called Spanish Guitar, but it was a cab/temp blend. When Alex brought out the wine, he also brought out rustic bread with garlic infused olive oil and a sundried tomato tapenade. Normally, I'm not a big fan of olives, but the tapenade was mild and I really found myself enjoying it.

For our next first course, we ordered the charcuterie for two (pictured up top - $15). This appetizer consisted of ample portions of breseola, speck alto, an herbed goat cheese, piave, olives, pickled vegetables and a couple of breadsticks. Everything was good (I particularly enjoyed the breseola), but the presentation was a little bit lacking. We both agreed that next time we'd probably skip the charcuterie and go with hot appetizers.

We ordered two entrees that sounded good to both of us with the intention of sharing both. We selected the scallop di stagione ($23), which was described as 'seared scallops over sundried tomato and caramelized fennel risotto with toasted pignoli dandelion greens pesto'. When the dish arrived, I was a little disappointed by the way it looked on the plate. It seemed as though it was plated in a hurry without much thought to the final appearance.

As far as taste went, though, it was a success. The scallops were nicely cooked and very lightly seasoned. The risotto was very good, with the rich flavor of the roasted fennel very much at the forefront. All of the components of the dish were nicely executed, but Kristine and I both felt like they could have been tied together a little better.

For me, the real hit of the evening was the special. Jumbo prawns with pearl onions in a lobster cardinal sauce, served with a paella risotto cake (~$27). The head-on prawns were beautifully cooked (and yes, I sucked the heads), the sauce was creamy with a little bit of spice and chunks of lobster, and the paella risotto cake reminded me of a crabcake, but with more delicate flavors. The only thing I could possibly fault would again be the presentation. The whole dish was basically orange/red, but I frankly didn't care because it was so good. Oh, and the wine pairing we did with this one was great. We had a Geode Chardonnay from Santa Barbara, which had great honey & tropical fruit notes that were a nice counterpoint to the rich spicing of the lobster cardinal.

Ok, finally about dessert. In the menu available online, they had listed a chili spiced chocolate torte with chocolate mint sauce and hazelnut gelato. It looks like they reworked that into a chocolate lava cake with hazelnut sauce and hazelnut gelato (~$10). Although I was looking forward to the chocolate/chile combination, the dessert we had was great (especially the hazelnut gelato).

The service from Alex was very attentive without being obtrusive or hover-y (not a word, I know). And when we had the one awkward moment of the evening (when he brought us the check!), he very graciously went off to investigate, coming back to let us know things were sorted out a few minutes later.

So the summary:
Very good food (though presentation slightly off), and very good service make Azul a place that we'll definitely go back to.

So tonight was the big grand opening of the new Azul Restaurant Lounge in the lobby of the Westin La Paloma.

I was looking forward to checking them out, so Kristine & I set out to see what they had going on. The invitation said that we could expect, "...a contemporary, upscale cocktail and dining experience surrounded by dramatic blue lighting, deep lounge music, and the truly instinctive, personal service you have come to expect."

Cool, yo. It sounded hip and swanky - kinda like me (ok, not so much). I like the Westin La Paloma, and so I was thinking it was going to be good time.

Now here's the disclaimer. I was a little cranky with a few things when we were getting ready to leave, but it all worked out and there was a happy ending. Just bear with me.

Kristine started off with her favorite microbrew (ok, it was really a Bud Light, but she's too sweet to hold that against her), and I ordered the China Blue Martini, thinking that I would keep to the blue theme. The martini was Beefeater gin, St. Germain ginger liqueur (who knew they make a ginger liqueur??), blue curacao, and candied ginger in place of the olive. It was served in an individual cocktail shaker, and overall was tasty - a little on the sweet side, but I was expecting that.

We ordered two of the 50% off appetizers (check their website for some good specials http://www.azullapaloma.com): the pan-seared zucchini galette (homemade zucchini cakes, pine nuts, feta, tomato, and cherry pepper salad, with tzatziki and lemon) and the calamari fritto (tomatoes, roasted garlic, parsley finished with white balsamic honey reduction with spicy cherry pepper sauce). Kris enjoyed the zucchini, and I thought it was fine (don't tell anyone, but I'm not a huge fan of feta, so I knew it wasn't going to be my favorite thing ever). Calamari is something like our litmus test, though. We have it pretty much anywhere new that we go, so we opted for that here. I thought the flavor of the sauce was good, although not quite what I was expecting from the description. The texture of the breading was a little gooey, which I could see with it being in a reduced sauce, but the squid itself was rubbery. Kristine didn't think it was as overdone as I did, but I stand by it being too chewy.

About me being cranky - all the servers appeared to be women, and they were all wearing black cocktail dresses. There were quite a few who were circulating around the tables with drink samples and what looked like raffle tickets. They skipped over us every single time they came around. It was like we weren't even there. My pet peeve as far as service goes is being ignored, and we were totally being ignored - which was hard, considering that we were sitting in the exact middle of the lounge. Grrr.

As we were getting ready to head out, Bill, the general manager, came over to us and asked what we thought. I'm pretty sure our friends from Many Hats sent him our way, since he referred to me as 'that food guy'.*

I told him that I had mixed feelings about things and explained why. It turns out that the young women who were ignoring us actually work for one of the alcohol companies and not Azul or Westin. It's too bad that they were wearing basically the same thing as the waitstaff, because it tainted our feelings towards the actual Azul servers (who were doing a fine job). They needed a logo or something to set them apart...

Final thoughts: when we got there, we didn't get the whole blue lighting thing. As it got a little darker, though, the effect was a lot better. The 'deep lounge music' was cool - sort of thumping bass and the occasional horn. And stuff. Look, I'm not a music guy - I'm a food guy.

I'm really happy that Bill came over to chat with us. If he hadn't we would have left unhappy instead of walking away with a generally positive experience as far as Azul goes. I think we may have just had an unfortunate batch of the squid, and I'm pretty sure we'll give them another shot. Or two.

If we're hip and trendy enough, that is.

-TFD
* I'll admit it. I kinda liked being pointed out as 'that food guy'.

Wow - it's been a super long time since I've blogged! And to think that the last thing I posted wasn't even mine. I should be ashamed, but I'm hopeful that I'll recover.

So I had lunch yesterday with a friend of mine; let's call her 'Maura'. Maura and I really like El Guero Canelo, but not too many of our compadres do.

I have no idea what's wrong with them either.

So I head over there from work and pull into the parking lot - almost running over a cameraman in the process. They were filming owner and founder Daniel Contreras on front of the original Guero Canelo taco stand. I like seeing local media covering local businesses (especially ones that I enjoy and frequent), so I waved apologetically at the camera guy and pull into a parking spot. Little did I know how wrong I was about the 'local media' part of that...

Maura arrived a few minutes later and we order our meal: carne asada caramelo & Diet Coke for Maura, very mucho burro with chicken and a Manzanita Sol - or was it a Manzana Lift? - for me. We got our salsas, cucumbers, radishes, limes, and roasted jalapenos to enjoy before the food was ready and chatted. I was really bummed they were out of the roasted green onions - they're my faves. Maura ended up biting off a little more than she expected (sorry for the pun) with one of the chiles. It was a little higher on the Scoville scale than she expected, and it about put her out of commission for a little bit. It may have been the first time I've see her sweat, now that I think about it.

But I digress.

I need to talk about the chicken at this place. I'm not really sure what it is. I mean, it's chicken-y (new word o' the day) in flavor, but it's very uniform. And kinda spongy. And cubed - very evenly. It almost unnerves me, but yet I almost always order something with the chicken. I wish I knew what it was. Wait, I take that back - that's probably best not to ask about since I like it.

Maura enjoyed her caramelo, but then again she always does. I like their carne asada a lot, and combined with melty cheese and flour tortilla and it's elevated even higher.

I'm getting hungry.

Ok, so about that scoop. After we'd finished eating Daniel Contreras (El Guero Canelo himself) came over to bus our table. Maura asked him about the camera and the interviewing, and he said there were filming a spot for CBS Sunday Morning that's going to air on 11/22. Way to go Guero Canelo!

Granted, EGC and Sonoran-style hot dogs have been getting a lot of attention lately (Bon Appetit's Top 10 Places for hot dogs, New York Times: In Praise of the All American Mexican Hot Dog), but this is going to be a great story. Check it out next Sunday!

And in the meantime, go to El Guero Canelo and have a Sammy Dog, or a caramelo, or a very mucho anything in support of this great local success story.

I realize that this may be considered cheating by some blogging purists, but I'm sick. Below you'll find the press release that I just received about Arizona Restaurant Week coming up here very soon. It's a great time to get out and try some of the places you might not otherwise. I'm really looking forward to it!

So enjoy the press release, and contact the folks listed if you have any questions!

-Kevin (TFD)

Arizona Restaurant Week to Showcase Tucson Restaurants

Tucson, Ariz. (September 10, 2009) – The many celebrated chefs and restaurateurs in Tucson are anticipating the Old Pueblo’s debut in the second annual Arizona Restaurant Week.

The eight-day culinary event, which runs from September 19 through September 26, 2009, is designed to spotlight the diverse culinary scene throughout the state of Arizona. Each restaurant will offer a three-course dinner menu of signature dishes for $29 per person, excluding beverages, tax and gratuity. In addition, a few restaurants will be offering three courses for two diners for $29. Dining enthusiasts can try a new restaurant they otherwise might not be able to afford or visit their favorites.

Over 30 restaurants are participating in the Tucson market serving a plethora of signature dishes, like Pastiche Modern Eatery’s Baked Mac and Cheese or NoRTH’s Flank Steak with Warm Tuscan Kale dishes, with the aim of attracting both new guests and frequent diners.

However, several restaurants are taking a more adventurous approach to the prix-fixe menu. At the midtown gem, Feast, Chef and Owner Doug Levy will offer his entire menu of international flair during the acclaimed Restaurant Week. Guests can favorably choose any appetizer, entrée and dessert combination to create their own three-course dinner.

Or at Jax Kitchen two diners can each enjoy a three-course dinner for $29. The menu of classic comfort foods features a variety of seasonally-fresh salads and sandwiches with Jax’s signature baked cookies and bourbon-spiked milk for dessert.

Sullivan’s Steakhouse changes up their traditional chop shop menu of family-style side dishes for Arizona Restaurant Week. The modern steakhouse will offer both asparagus and mashed potatoes – normally at an additional cost – with its entrées of either steak, chicken, salmon, or crab-stuffed shrimp, as the second course of the prix-fixe menu.

The entire list of participating restaurants, prix-fixe menus and links to book online reservations can be found at www.ArizonaRestaurantWeek.com. Restaurant Week updates can also be found on Twitter @azrestaurantwk.

Advanced reservations are encouraged during Arizona Restaurant Week, as dining availabilities will fill up quickly through the eight-day event.

For more information contact Sara Anderson, marketing and events manager of the Arizona Restaurant Association, at 602.307.9134.

Arizona Restaurant Week is an exciting event developed to showcase the outstanding culinary scene throughout the state of Arizona. Playing off huge success in 2008, Arizona Restaurant Week will include both the Phoenix Metro and Tucson markets in 2009. The Arizona Restaurant Association, in partnership with Absolut Vodka, US Foods, Crescent Crown Distributing, Coca-Cola, Brown-Forman Wines, The Scottsdale Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, azcentral.com, The Arizona Republic, Phoenix Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, 99.9 KEZ, Phoenix Magazine, OpenTable, Fox Restaurant Concepts, Olson Communications, Many Hats Advertising, Tucson Newspapers, Tucson Lifestyle, KVOA TV, The Mountain, KNST Radio, have come together to create this event, which will showcase Arizona as a premier dining destination for food lovers.

Arizona Restaurant Association is dedicated to educating Arizona’s restaurant industry as the leading resource for information regarding the industry’s latest trends, management techniques and regulations. The Arizona Restaurant Association serves as the legislative liaison for Arizona’s restaurants representing the interests of more than 11,000 food service establishments at the state legislature, county governments and municipalities.

Contact:
Cyndy Neighbors
Many Hats Advertising
520.325.0940
cneighbors@manyhatsads.com

Sara Anderson
Arizona Restaurant Association
602.307.9134
sara@azrestaurant.org

My friend Travis called me last night to clue me in on an event happening this Saturday. Nana's Kitchen Mexican restaurant is having their one-year anniversary celebration! Congrats Teran family!

They'll be having mariachis, $1.50 longnecks, $2.00 margaritas, and some great food specials.

Mention that you heard about it on Twitter and... well, it probably won't get you anything extra, but it'll make them happy!

So here's the recap:

• Nana's Kitchen, by I-10 & Cortaro
• (520)395-2508
• Saturday, August 29th
• 6:30pm until they're done
• http://nanaskitchenaz.com/ (hasn't been updated in a while - they've been cooking instead!)

Go out and help them celebrate with some great food, cheap beverages, and live entertainment!

Do you ever see people taking pictures of their food in a restaurant and think to yourself, "Why is that person taking a picture of their food?"? I don't mean someone taking a picture of the person across the table, I mean camera pointed directly at plate.

I've wondered that, but last week I took a few pictures of food. It was slightly embarrassing, but I did it. And since I did it, I'm going to share some of the highlights with you, dear reader.

These will be in chronological order.

Day One:
I'm going to skip the breakfast at McDonald's in LAX.
Lunch was at The Crow's Nest in Santa Cruz - view was great, food was fine, but not really anything to write home (or a blog) about. We were pretty hungry by then, and would have pretty much scarfed down anything.
Dinner was at Esteban - and we just sat at the bar and had tapas. One that I enjoyed the presentation of was the Thai snapper ceviche with pear and potato chip (the menu said taro, but they changed that). I should have known by the way our server winced that we might want to pick something else, but we didn't. The only two discernable flavors were vinegar and the slightly burnt chip:

I still liked the presentation, though. The winner there was the artichoke hearts and serrano ham with tomato relish. It was fresh, the textures of the silky artichoke and the dry ham were great counterpoints to each other. It was simple and rustic, but we enjoyed it quite a bit.

Day 2:
The food highlight of the day was dinner at The Sardine Factory. Now before you yell, "tourists!" in our general direction, I'd like to say that we ate small plates in the bar with some fairly colorful locals (including one woman who wanted to buy Kristine a glass of wine). We had a couple of great items, including the Baked Monterey Mushrooms (stuffed with crab and super-good), and the Bloody Mary Oyster shooters:

We also had some grilled shrimp on polenta in a red pepper coulis, which we had to send back because the bottom was badly burnt (you can even see it in the picture!). The second one to come out was great, though. The polenta had a perfect texture, and the shrimp were cooked perfectly.



Day Three:
Wow. There was some great food this day. I'm going to go up until dinner and then stop for the time being...

Ok, breakfast was the contintental buffet at the hotel. Look, it's not great, but it's cost effective.

Then we were off to Carmel-by-the-Sea for a fun day of sightseeing, beaching, shopping, and, of course, eating. There may or may not have been some wine involved as well. Ok, there was.

Lunch was at The Village Corner, and we had a spinach salad with grilled shrimp and mandarin oranges, and crab/ricotta ravioli in a tomato pesto sauce. The sauce on the ravioli was full of fresh tomato, basil and parmesan flavors, but it way overpowered the crab filling in the ravioli. That was too bad, because that's what drew me to the dish in the first place.

We then hit a couple of places for wine: The Galante Winery tasting room where we tried some great local wines (I was very partial to the Blackjack Cab) and an argument with the proprietor over whether or not he could ship wines to Arizona. I said he couldn't, but I was wrong. Turns out the laws have changed recently so that if we were to buy it in the store and have it shipped home it would be fine.

We stopped in a Vino Napoli, which just opened the week before. They had some kinks to work out but we got great service from Alana. They specialize in building flights of 2 oz. pours, and had probably 25 different wines to choose from.

Upon a local's recommendation, we also went to the bar at The Cypress Inn for a glass. We discovered that it's partially owned by none other than Doris Day - which explained the large collection of DD movie posters used as decoration. We knew we were in the presence of locals because everyone had a 10 lb. dog on their lap. Carmel is a VERY dog-friendly place.

Ok, this posting has gone on far too long! I'll pick up with Day 3 dinner (teaser: at Christopher's in Carmel) later on.

Thanks for making it this far!

-TFD

Yeah, I know. I'm Tucson Food Dude and I'm writing about a restaurant in Phoenix. I don't get hung up on labels. What I do get hung up on, though, is not taking an appropriate amount of pictures for things such as this. I'll do better next time and not just use a cropped picture of me really happy about getting beer.

So I'm not going to call this a review, because I'm not going back for a second meal. I would if I could, but it's a bit of a drive...

This lunch was immediately following the casting call for NFNS. BTW, I didn't get a callback from them, so I'm just going to assume that they misplaced my number (ah, the protected ego!).

Kristine's bro Jeff lives up there, so we called him up to see if he could recommend a place and meet us. He's the hippest CPA you could ever meet, so we knew he'd have a good spot in mind. His suggestion was Postino in the Arcadia area of Phoenix. I'm not entirely sure what Arcadia covers, but this place was close to 40th St & Camelback (full contact info below). It turned out to be a former post office (hence the name), with a light and airy feel. They call themselves a wine bar, but that doesn't mean that the food played second fiddle.

I was ready to blow off some steam when we got there, so I ordered one of the two beers on tap. I'm partial to an IPA, so I picked that without really knowing what it was. They were doing a special for lunch, offering a pitcher (which they characterized as 'small') for $5.00. I went with that. Turns out it wasn't that small, and I got about 2 1/2 pints out of it.... Jeff was jealous because he had to go back to work. The beer was from Odell, and it was fantastic. Amber coloring, creamy head, citrus and floral notes in the aroma, and hoppy without being ridiculous about it. My kind of beer.

They seem to specialize in panini, bruschetta, and salads for lunchtime (or maybe all the time). Kristine & I both went with the half panino/bowl of soup combo ($9.50). We both chose the proscuitto with brie sandwich and chicken artichoke florentine soup. She had her panino on foccacia, and I went with ciabatta.

The panini were described as: 'Prosciutto with triple cream brie, fig jam and arugula with balsamic vinegar and olive oil'. There wasn't a lot of arugula (in fact just a little pile in the middle, and I couldn't detect any balsamic at all. Nonetheless, the flavor combination in it was great. The sweet, earthy fig with the salty proscuitto and creamy brie was a major hit.

The soup wasn't quite as I expected. It was tasty, but none of the flavors really stood out. I expected a little more zip from the artichoke and maybe a bit more chicken (I only saw one or two pieces in my bowl). Next time, I'd definitely choose one of their salads instead of the soup.

Jeff let us know that they're really known for their bruschetta, which they have a very broad selection of. Next time I'm up that way, I'll check it out.

I should mention that the service we received was top-notch: friendly and attentive without hovering. I'll look forward to another meal there, and a chance to try out some of their extensive wine list.

Postino is located at 3939 E Campbell Ave. Their website is postinowinecafe.com, and they have full menus at the site. They have another location on Central as well.

How's that for a non-specific blog posting title? I don't really have anything startling to report, but wanted to do a quick update.

I just did my second post at Circle of Food on the difference between baking powder and baking soda. Did you know that baking powder is baking soda plus an acid and a filler? Well if you didn't, you do now. My first post was on a subject near and dear to my heart: beer. I guess that's actually a lot nearer and dearer to my liver, but who's going to call me out on that? It's funny, but I'm enjoying the blogging and the tweeting. If you would have asked me six months ago, I probably would have said I wasn't really interested in either.

My honey and I have had a couple of food/beverage outings of note. We went to Vistas at the Tucson Hilton East and it was just plain weird. The bar didn't have a wine list, the bartender didn't seem to have a good grasp on what she was doing, and the restaurant was deserted when we arrived. A couple of people showed up for dinner before we finished our wine, but it was still kind of odd. But we seem to thrive on those kinds of things, so it's all good.

We also went to Ric's Cafe for dinner. As a member of Tucson Originals, they have a $20.09 special that we wanted to try out. Their offering is all-you-can-eat baby back ribs served with mashed potatoes and a squash medley. It also came with a pint of Fat Tire, which was just fine with me. The ribs were a little tough, a little fatty (they were trimmed sort of oddly), and the sauce was put on after they were cooked. I know that some places do that, but I like them to cook at least a little bit with the sauce on. But they were ok, as was the veg. The mashed potatoes were really good, though. They had a nice garlic kick to them, which I enjoyed. As for the AYCE part of the dinner, I didn't manage to eat more than the full rack they brough out initially. I really wanted to order more (because I like to maximize those kinds of things), but didn't have the room.

Let's see, what else? The girls took me to Beyond Bread for Father's Day lunch and it was fabulous as usual. They made me a scrapbook of pictures of when they were very young - it was just too sweet.

That was followed up two hours later with Father's Day dinner with KW's family at Zona 78. You might guess that I wasn't hungry, and you'd be right. By the time we were paying the bill, I was starting to want a little something to nibble on. Figures.

So I think that kinda sums things up for the last week or two. There'll be more to come soon!

-TFD

This is a meme that should be expected pretty early on, eh? I tried doing this in some sort of order, but that didn't work out so well. With that in mind, here are some of my fave spots and why they're on this list:

Feast - Feast is a little spot where the focus is really on the customer. The servers are always top-notch, the menu changes regularly, the wine selection is fantastic for a place its size, and I enjoy Chef Doug Levy's 'Dear Feastlings' emails with updates, events, and new menu info.

Marlene's Hungry Fox - No website here, they're too busy cracking eggs! I love a hearty American-style breakfast, and that's what you get at the Hungry Fox. The bake their own white bread daily, as well as their cinnamon rolls. They serve 'double yolk' eggs, which means that you get four eggs in their two-egg breakfast. This is not health food, but it's tasty, tasty, tasty.

Cafe Poca Cosa - This is not your Nana's Mexican food. It is completely sublime, though. The menu changes twice daily, and it always sounds so good that you want to try a bunch of things. You're in luck, though, because you can always get a chef's selection combination. They'll pick out three or so of the dishes, and bring out your surprise meal. You don't get to pick what comes out, but trust me, it'll be good.

El Guero Canelo - Here's some great taco stand style food. Pick your burrito size, what you want in it, and wait for your number to be called. I really love the caramelos, as well as the 'condiment bar' where you can get your pick of any number of salsas, roasted spring onions & jalapenos, cucumbers, radishes, limes, etc. It's a do-it-yourself side dish!

Mayflower - Yep, it's in a strip mall. It's small, sparsely decorated, and features an all-you-can-eat buffet. Normally, I'm not a buffet guy, but theirs is pretty good (and way cheap). To really experience them, though, order off the menu. Ask one of the young, friendly serves (most of whom are family) what's good that day and you won't go wrong.

So what are your five faves?